Landowner explains late night activity on River Road site

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is investigating a complaint this week about what some residents believed might be an illegal dumping at night.

As suspicious as it may have seemed, the owner has another explanation.

The sight of dump trucks moving earth late at night would seem suspicious to many people.

Off River Road, it may seem like it, but it was to help the Port of Lake Charles move the railroad tracks from Sallier Street from just west of Lake Street to the Port.

Officials say the work must be done at night to avoid interfering with trains running during the day.

River Road landowner Stanley Caldarera explains that he let the harbor contractor use his property as a yard.

“They have the Sallier project where they move the railroad tracks from the south side to the north side and they can only do it at night because of the train. We gave them a site to use and it was supposed to be done by 10, 11 o’clock, but they went in a little longer than they should have and it went a little longer into the night,” Caldarera said.

Caldarera says he is building the land and plans to build four exclusive homes there in a development called Our Time Properties.

“You want to keep building it because of the flood elevation, trying to bring it up to FEMA requirements,” which he says are now 10 feet, he said.

“They will be sold to individuals, individual lots that people can buy with a wall across the street on the water side so they can have a house on one side and a boathouse on the other side,” Caldarera said.

Many community members remember that in the 1960s and perhaps the 1970s, the south side of the river was used for landfill. Meanwhile, port officials expect work on the tracks to continue for another day or so.

“This (landfill) was actually, from where you come on River Road, all the way west to the river, on the south side of the road, it was all landfill back in the day,” he said. “Back in the day, the city used to dump here, the city, state and parish would come and dump all the stuff back here. And this is one of the remains, a tree behind me, that I dug up, so all of that was filled in.”